FCC Grants Nextel New Radio Spectrum
Federal regulators on Thursday approved a controversial plan to minimize cellphone interference on police and fire radios by moving 13 million customers of Nextel Communications Inc. to a different swath of airwaves.
The unanimous decision by the Federal Communications Commission marked a defeat for Verizon Wireless Inc., which had lobbied the agency to auction the disputed frequencies -- worth about $4.8 billion -- instead of “giving” them to Nextel.
FCC Chairman Michael K. Powell characterized the lobbying as “the most ruthless I have encountered.”
The intensity underscored the competition for space on the valuable, publicly owned radio spectrum, which is increasingly crowded with signals from radio stations, mobile phones and wireless computers.
“An enormous amount of time ... has been spent on valuations; the nickel-and-diming of what things are worth,” Powell said as he chastised the wireless industry for quibbling over how much of the spectrum Nextel needed. “But you cannot put a dollar value on the life of the men and women who wear the shield.”
Radio frequencies are like the lanes of an electronic freeway. If too many signals are too close together, they can bleed into one another and cause interference. That’s what happened with Nextel’s frequencies, which were adjacent to emergency radio channels used by police and fire departments.
The problem first surfaced in 1999, when police and firefighters began complaining that their radio transmissions were being disrupted by Nextel cellphones. In some cases police and fire personnel calling for backup could not use their radios because of interference.
The FCC gave Nextel three years to complete the transition to the new spectrum.
Nextel, the sixth-largest mobile phone company, said it was pleased with the FCC decision but cautioned that “information released today by the commission contains few details regarding the obligations its decision would impose on Nextel.”
Public safety officials who attended the FCC meeting said they were generally pleased with the agency’s plan. But, like Nextel, they were awaiting the particulars.
“It sounds pretty good on the surface, but we haven’t heard all the details yet,” said Harlin R. McWeen, chairman of the communications and technology committee of the International Assn. of Chiefs of Police.
Verizon, the nation’s largest cellphone company, blasted the decision and said it would ask Congress to intervene. The company, which offered as much as $5 billion for the spectrum, said federal law required the FCC to auction the disputed airwaves.
“The FCC has failed to provide a lawful solution to the challenge presented by Nextel’s interference with communications vital to the nation’s first responders,” Verizon said in a statement. “Now Congress must step in to fix this mess.”
The FCC plan outlined Thursday is similar to one proposed last year by Nextel.
In exchange for relocating, Nextel would abandon some of its current airwaves and pay $2.5 billion to buy new equipment for police and firefighters. The FCC would subtract those payments from the value of the new spectrum as well as credit the company $1.6 billion for returning the frequencies it currently occupies.
Nextel would remain on the hook for a so-called anti-windfall payment for the difference between those two costs and the $4.8-billion value of the new spectrum.
In other action, the FCC eliminated a rule that allowed rivals of local phone companies to receive the same terms on agreements struck with other carriers.
The rule was enacted to help smaller phone companies with little clout win the same access to local phone facilities negotiated by larger companies such as AT&T; Corp. and MCI Inc.
Jason Oxman, general counsel for the Assn. for Local Telecommunications Services in Washington, criticized the move, saying the new rule would give competitors “much less access ... than they would under the old rules” and lead to higher prices.
